Slick (6 page)

From that moment on, accounts vary widely. Some students say Annabelle was icy calm in the chaos she caused. Others say she was crying and screaming. The only fact was that she kept shooting. At Bryan Edison. In retrospect, there’s no doubt that Bryan knew exactly what her mission was. While half the students ducked under tables, Bryan fled with the rest. And Annabelle followed.

Expanded in 1992, the Melrose High cafeteria accommodated more than six hundred students. It was twenty times the size of the school’s basketball court. In the thirty seconds it took Bryan to make it to the doors, Annabelle fired twelve more rounds. Four of them hit walls. Seven hit bystanders. The final shot nailed Brian in the back of the head just as he reached the exit. He died before he hit the ground.

The Glock 17 is so named because its standard clip holds seventeen bullets. Annabelle brought no backup ammo, and was obviously saving the last shot for herself. It pierced her troubled mind, into her left temple and out through the right.

In the end, there were five dead students, including Bryan Edison and Annabelle. Four others were rushed to Cedars-Sinai with moderate to critical wounds. Out of all casualties, three were eventually confirmed as Bitch Fiends. The others had never even spoken to Annabelle. They only had the misfortune of standing near Bryan Edison.

At 1:11
p.m.
Pacific time, the first hints of trouble hit the AP wires. No names. No figures. Just shots fired and casualties reported. Local news teams had flooded the scene by 1:30. The story cracked wide open at three o’clock, when reporters around the nation first spoke the words “Bitch Fiend.” In New York, viewers heard it from their favorite evening newscast. In L.A., the kids coming home from more fortunate schools got their first glimpse of the tragedy. And at Keoki Atoll, right at that moment, I was cluelessly faxing every newsroom in the country with my super-hot announcement:
naked young women protest beach resort
.

 

 

“Damn.”

That was Miranda, at the Tiki Bar, watching the news. By then the story was hours old. It had already mushroomed into the heavens. I wasn’t sure if she was cursing at the tragedy of the situation or the fact that she was the last reporter in the United States to get wind of it.

“Shit.”

That was me, next to Miranda. I was cursing at the tragedy of the situation. I had worked damn hard on my VNR. I’d spent over half a million dollars of my client’s money. And thanks to one disturbed but media-savvy little girl, my Trojan horse became a big white elephant.

 

 

So what is a Bitch Fiend?

To most of the reporters on the scene, it was simply the phrase that Annabelle had inscribed on the label of the controversial mini-tape. Some heard she’d include a tell-all suicide note. Others reported that there was
allegedly
a videotaped sex act involving Annabelle and one of the victims. Or two of the victims. Or one of the teachers. Who knew? The cops weren’t talking.

But the title of the tape was quickly cracked by the minority of reporters who knew their hip-hop. “Bitch Fiend” was the name of a breakout song by Hunta, a young L.A. rapper whose platinum-selling debut album,
Huntaway
, had been released in 2000 through Mean World Records and distributed by Interscope.

I’d never heard of the man myself, but then I wasn’t a rap aficionado. I only knew the marquee names, mostly through their controversies: Sean “Puffy” Combs (gun/assault/bribery charges), Eminem (gun/assault/homophobia), Snoop Dogg (gun/murder, acquitted), Ice Cube and Ice-T (anti-cop sentiments, movies), and Dr. Dre (various punching /slapping offenses).

Welcome to the big list, Hunta. Hope you survive.

The many news stations under the CBS/Viacom aegis were given quick access to Hunta’s music video for “Bitch Fiend,” courtesy of sister network MTV. Only a few stations played clips from the raunchy thing. Others broke the plot down to its bare essence: Hunta gets jiggy with bitch. Hunta secretly records bitch. Hunta shows videotape of bitch to all his homeys.

The uncut version of “Bitch Fiend” was first released on the Playboy Channel last September. A strategically edited/blurred version-complete with radio-safe lyrics-soon made the rounds on MTV. There was still enough sex and nastiness to keep the video in heavy rotation, enough to make Hunta more than just a fleeting new face on the scene.

By the time Miranda and I finally caught up with the nation, several Melrose students had spoken to the media. Once again wildly conflicting stories filled the airwaves, all under the
alleged
banner. The whole basketball team was secretly known and feared as the Bitch Fiends. No, it was only a few of them. No, it was all of them, plus at least ten other guys. And they had a sex club. I heard it was an S&M club. Well, I heard they videotaped all their sexual encounters and showed them to each other, just like in Hunta’s music video. Yeah, it was like a membership requirement. No, they told me it was a rape club, man.

Shit, Annabelle. You really knew your media. Not only did you deliver a long-awaited sequel to Columbine, but you gave it a sordid sex twist and a hip-hop soundtrack. Too bad you cast yourself as the lead. The first rule of the media operative is never become part of the story. You should have consulted me.

All in all, it was an ugly situation that would only get worse. The police had just begun their investigation. The press was on full-tilt boogie. And you could just hear the politicians sharpening their knives. They were all fixing to close in on one target: Hunta.

Poor guy. All he wanted to do was get it on with American culture, that hot and surly supermodel. Well, he got her. But this time he was the one who was in for a rough fucking. She was about to show him what a Bitch could really do.

Although she had rained on my parade, Annabelle Shane also managed to end a personal dry spell.

Miranda caught up with me at the LAX baggage claim. By then it was two in the morning. I’d been flying high over Catalina when it stopped being my birthday.

“Take me to a hotel,” she said.

“You’re staying now.”

“I called my editor. He’s putting me on the Melrose High shooting. I told him I deserved some real news after putting up with your crap.”

“Aren’t you stepping on toes?”

“It’s a big story. There’s plenty of room. You parked in long-term, right?”

And just like that, I inherited Miranda. And her baggage.

 

 

“I can’t believe you drive a Saturn.”

I couldn’t believe she was still awake. Miranda had been in the air for eighteen of the past twenty-four hours, crossing back and forth through six different time zones. Her inner clock must have been blinking at 12:00. Now, at 2:30
a.m.
, she somehow found the energy to disparage my car.

“What would you rather I drive?” I asked her.

“You’re in Los Angeles. You should have an SUV.”

“Short people drive SUVs. I don’t need to feel bigger.”

I figured that Miranda, at 5’ 1”, would respond with a flip comeback, or at least a flipped finger. Instead, she merely stretched and curled in a way that was seductively catlike. I kept my eyes on the road, but I knew she was looking at me.

“What?”

“You liked Deb Isham,” she teased. “I could tell.”

“Go to sleep.”

“No shame in it, man. Her tits were huge.”

“If that’s all it took, I’d have a crush on every woman in L.A.”

“I mean naturally huge. I think you could have had her, too. If I didn’t ruin it.”

“I doubt it.”

“So what was it you liked about her? Besides her knockers. Is it that she’s young and naive? That she could gaze upon you with a sense of awe and wonder?”

I would not entertain this conversation. Not at 2:30
a.m
.

“Scott?”

“Oh, me? Sorry. I thought you were talking to Jim.”

She laughed hysterically, not without bitterness. “That was so rude!”

“I know. I’m sorry. Would you prefer pity?”

“No. That’s why I like you.”

“Wow, Miranda. You actually admit it. How many drinks did you have on that flight?”

“None. I’m just really tired. Why? Are you trying to take advantage of me?”

“Always.”

“Good. I don’t feel like checking into a hotel.”

I thought of several quips, all ranging from cute to provocative. Instead, I merely shut up. It had been a long day. I was too drained to handle the dilemma that was turning from humor to reality.

From the 405, I took the Wilshire East exit. I lived in Brentwood, only a few minutes away. Miranda had reserved a room at the Hotel Claremont, even closer. The sooner I got her out of my car, the better.

“So this is the famous Wilshire Boulevard,” she said, to my relief. That was her way of applying the handbrake.

“Yeah. You know who it was named after?”

“Mr. Wilshire.”

“Mr. H. Gaylord Wilshire. He was an active socialist but that didn’t stop him from being a great capitalist. He invented the I-ON-A-CO magnetic belt, an expensive little doodad that was supposed to cure any physical problem. Made millions off of it. He bought so many buildings on this one street that they finally just named it after him. They even called his district the Miracle Mile, because they thought he was such a wizard. You want to know what the funniest part is?”

She didn’t answer. I turned to look at her. She kept her cold stare forward, fighting back tears. Losing.

“Ah, shit. I’m sorry, Miranda.”

“No. No pity. Come on. You were doing so well.”

I sped through a yellow light. A dark SUV tailgated me. Its brights were on. I had to reposition my mirror to keep from going blind.

“Is there something I can say or do to make you feel better?”

“Depends,” she said.

“On what?”

“On whether or not you want to sleep with me.”

BAM! Both of our heads jerked back. I almost swerved onto the sidewalk.

Miranda turned around. “Jesus! What happened?”

I wasn’t sure until I looked in the rearview mirror again. The SUV quickly pulled back, signaling to the right.

“We just got rear-ended,” I said.

“Holy shit.”

I pulled over, right in front of the Avco cineplex. In this part of town, Wilshire was an eight-lane street. At this time of night, it was deserted. It had taken an extraordinary amount of incompetence to hit me.

I turned on the hazards and looked to Miranda. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Did you hit the brake or something?”

“No. He just knocked into us.”

“Well, be careful,” she said as I opened the door. “It could be a gang thing.”

Silly New Yorker. Crips don’t drive sport utility wagons. I was more concerned about an irrational drunk. The last thing I needed was to deal with somebody’s beer-fueled rage.

I got out. A small woman emerged from the driver’s side. In the harsh white glow of the headlights, I could only see her silhouette.

“Are you okay, ma’am?”

Without a word, she reached into her car and shut off the brights. She’d done a fair amount of damage to my trunk, and virtually none to her front bumper and grille. An other reason to hate SUVs.

I was idly intrigued by her license plate:
MRVL GRL. It was easy enough to add the proper vowels and get Marvel Girl, but you had to be a longtime comic book reader in order to put the name to a face. Marvel Girl was the very first alias of Jean Grey, the female member of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original X-Men. She dropped the moniker in
Uncanny X-Men
#101, when she merged with a cosmic entity to become the all-powerful Phoenix. Since then, she’s gone on to become Dark Phoenix, dead Phoenix, resurrected Phoenix, and Famke Janssen.

The driver looked like none of them. Whereas Jean Grey was a statuesque beauty with a large mane of flame-red hair, this Marvel Girl was a pixie of a woman, a cropped-cut brunette. If it wasn’t for her denim skirt, I might have guessed she was a teenage boy. Then I would have studied her face. Her small features, combined with contrastingly large eyes, gave her a naïve, golden-age charm. She would have been considered beautiful back in the silent-movie era. Today she was merely cute and pleasant in a Katie Couric sort of way.

She jerked a tense shrug, then examined the damage.

“Well, it’s ugly,” I told her, “but it could have been worse. You do have insurance, right?”

She didn’t answer me. She kept looking at my dented trunk.

“Excuse me? Do you have insurance?”

Shrugging at me again, she took a handheld PDA out of her blouse pocket, then had second thoughts. That’s right, honey. It’s too dark to be taking notes. Who the hell are you?

I held my arms out. “Uh, hello?”

She abruptly motioned to the dark figure in the passenger seat.
Get out here, will you?

The door opened, and an icy young blonde stepped out into the night. Very young. Her exaggerated crossed-arm stance pegged her at around fifteen. She was rail-thin and, unlike Marvel Girl, a little more hip with the times.

She studied me, then my car, and muttered an obscenity. Marvel Girl knocked on the hood to get her attention. “What do you want me to do about it?!”

Frustrated, the driver moved her hands in blunt but methodical patterns that clearly said volumes to the girl. They told me a few things as well.

“Wait a second. You’re deaf?” I looked to the girl. “She’s deaf?”

“Yes, she’s deaf. My mother wants me to tell you that she’s sorry for hitting you. It was totally her fault. As if that wasn’t obvious.”